SweeneyVesty wins Global Media Relations Campaign of the Year

Grand prize forcampaign now awarded
one gold, four silvers and a bronze in international competition

New
York, 1 October 2015 – SweeneyVesty
has scooped the Grand Prize for media relations campaign of the year,
capping a stunning 2015 for the public relations firm, which has also won gold,
four silver and bronze trophies in international competition, including a
Silver Cannes Lion.

PR
Daily, the US communications industry bible, awarded SweeneyVesty the Grand
Prize and Best Media Relations Campaign under-$50,000 for its Scoot Airlines PR
campaign that wittily took the Mickey out of fellow budget airline Spirit,
whose new corporate livery and branding bore more than a passing resemblance to
Scoot’s.

SweeneyVesty,
headquartered in New York and with offices in Auckland, Wellington, Singapore,
Berlin, London, Sydney and Ohio, also won PR Daily’s Best Brand Messaging or
Positioning category.

This
follows a Silver Cannes Lion, AD STARS gold and two silvers in Korea, a bronze
at New York’s prestigious Clio Awards, and gold at the Spikes Asia Festival of
Creativity for SweeneyVesty, and advertising partner Saatchi & Saatchi
Singapore’s work for Scoot.

Chairman
Brian Sweeney says the Scoot campaign exemplifies the SweeneyVesty approach:
creativity, intelligence, humour and the ability to execute world-class work on
a small budget.

When Scoot discovered Spirit
had flattered the Singaporean airline with its branding imitation, it decided
to make fun of its American doppelganger rather than wasting money on lawyers.

SweeneyVesty
and Saatchi & Saatchi created a series of media events and collateral,
culminating in the naming of a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner after them. Inspiring
Spirit still flies the skies today.

“This
was a superb example of how to leverage a potential PR risk into a stunning PR
triumph that created international recognition and support for Scoot,” Sweeney
says.

The
campaign generated more than US$40 million in earned media value, was covered
by more than 100 media outlets and resulted in a 32% rise in the number of
searches for Scoot Airlines on Google.

Sweeney
says: “I feel incredibly proud of our award-winning teams in Singapore,
Auckland, Wellington and New York who created and carried out this flawlessly
creative and effective campaign, which has now received global recognition.

“The prizes acknowledge that
thinking outside the box and fleet-footed, PR-led campaigns can be a highly
effective means of communicating brand messages,” he says.